Home Run Derby May Be Really Boring

2005 BASEBALL PREVIEW

At least the House Committee on Cheating, or whatever it was called, will no longer be filling out the lineup card. Frankly, I would have had Canseco batting cleanup that day.

As Mark McGwire testified, let's let bygone be bygones. If only it were that easy.

What we are embarking on tonight is a season of damage control. There will be plenty of good, wholesome, Steinbrenner-driven stories. But the steroid stench is so bad, baseball needs to do everything possible not to remind people of its synthetic past.

Step 1 already began with the suspension of Barry Bonds. (OK, it's just a conspiracy theory. But the effect is the same).

Step 2 comes in three months. Baseball should cancel the Home Run Derby at the All-Star Game in Detroit.

Could anybody really watch it with a straight face?

That's not to say the contestants would be juiced. The way some sluggers have shrunk, it could be the first home run contest where the pitcher leaves with a 0.00 ERA.

But merely having a home run contest is like putting another "Kick Me" sign on baseball's back. Would Enron have an investing contest? Would Ashlee Simpson stage a High-Note Hitting derby?

The last thing baseball wants is people thinking dingers. Thanks to BALCO, Congress and public disgust, the sport has started to clean up its Love Steroids Canal. But the "Chicks Dig The Long Ball" approach is a throwback to events Bud Selig would like to pretend never happened.

Like 2002, when Jason Giambi won the Home Run Derby. He hasn't apologized yet to runner-up Sammy Sosa. Then again, maybe Juicing Jason knows something the rest of us only suspect.

Brady Anderson won in 1996, the year he hit 50 home runs. He had hit 16 the year before. I don't want to say "anecdotal evidence," but Anderson's testosterone levels were so high that year he probably needed a lawn mower to shave his back hair.

This would have been the 20th anniversary of the Home Run Derby. Back when Jim Rice won the first one, you could believe your eyes.

Now, there's only one way skeptics will believe the contest is legit. Put a Port-O-Let in the batter's box, have the contestant emerge with a urine sample that is immediately tested and declared clean.

And really, haven't we already seen the word "urine sample" enough for this lifetime?

Instead of a home run contest, baseball could stage a skills competition. Who's the fastest player from first to third? Who has the best outfield arm?

If those are boring, a sure winner would be a dunking booth with Selig and Don Fehr strapped to the drop seat. With any luck, Randy Johnson would miss high and inside and conk Selig in the head.

At last year's All-Star Game, the commissioner proclaimed "I've said it a lot of different ways, but this is our golden age. This is our time."

Funny, he wasn't exactly saying it that way at the congressional hearing. He was blaming the union. Fehr was blaming privacy rights. Canseco was blaming McGwire. McGwire was blaming his lawyer for advising him not to incriminate himself.

Bonds is blaming the media, of course. If he recovers from his knee problems and loses this year's contest, he'll probably blame Larry King.

The only useful thing a Home Run Derby would provide is fresh joke material. Instead of the AL vs. NL, all-star teams could be called Cream and Clear. The winner would get the home-field advantage in the World Series of Acne.

So please, baseball. Can the Derby. If for no other reason than it's scheduled for July 11.

On that day in 1914, Babe Ruth played his first major league game.

In honor of a real home run hitter, the fake ones should take a year off.